Hi Folks!

I tested something I found to be working excellent.
I've separated the Power supply to the turnouts from the locos.

Why? Well, I do get a bit of a voltage drop when I run more than 4-5 locos in the same part of the layout. That's no problem, but the turnouts become sluggish in their switching. Sometimes, they will not make a full switch. Yeah.. I use the old type M-tracks powered from K83 decoders.

Someone wrote a Word about adding boosters to the layout, but I'm Always looking for cheaper solutions.

I first removed all of the lamps in the turnout semaphors and by that saved 2,8 Amps. I'm currently building LED replacements, but are not quite done yet with those. They will anyway reduce current draw with 95% compared to the original bulbs. Then.. Rocrail only switch one turnout at the time, so the actual Power only need to be about 1 Amp maximum for the operation.

So.. I drive all the K83s from the programming track output of the CS2 and all of the locos from the normal output.
Works like a charm!

Now I'm curious if someone else also run their layout like this?
Also, if someone has some information for med which might be useful to avoid a potential disaster with my CS2..

Hi Martin,

Personally, I would never wire lights to get the track feed and waste power - that's what the Yellow is for

And I would reserve the programming track for programming -


I DO always advocate for a separate accessory bus and track bus(es) back to the controller.
Even if you don't use boosters initially, putting in a switch and being able to continue to control your accessories while the track is off (e.g. because of a short or emergency stop) is a boon.

The CS (unlike the MS) provides for programming of both locomotives and accessories without disconnecting the layout (mFX and PoM excluded). With the emergence by marklin of accessories that use soft CVs, the last thing you want is to forget to unplug your accessory bus as you add new devices. failing to do so will mean that ALL soft programmed accessories will get the new address/settings. This is not uncommon with Locos on the MS but, whereas it is a tedious, but not complicated, task to lift locos off the track to recover by redoing them individually - the same cannot be done for accessory decoders which are screwed under the layout usually in dark and hard to reach locations.

As Tom alludes to, I think you have achieved your results mainly by running new wiring.
However I would still connect it to the main output and not the Programming output (At the same time add a switch to allow isolation of the track feed).

p.s. <pedantic> your diagram implies the programming/accessory output of the CS2 is on the left (it is on the right) </pedantic>

Hi Peter!

Thank you for the input and information!

I have a toggle switch (DPDT), which let me choose to either power the programming track, or the assessories bus from the CS2 programming port. This since I rarely see any demand for programming locos while the layout is in operation.
If I understand your concerns correctly, this toggle switch will prevent (if switched) any problems with unwanted addressing.